Love Thine Enemy... Better Yet, Learn From Them

LOVE THINE ENEMY, BETTER YET--LEARN FROM THEM

By CA Donate

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?  Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48 KJV

I am the first person to admit that loving those who criticize us is a difficult thing to do! The passage cited above is just one of many places in Scripture that command us to treat them with kindness. What I really would like to do to them in the flesh cannot be shared here! We at the Reina Valera Gomez Bible Society have guys like Calvin George, Elmer Fernandez, Luis Parada, Mark Ward, Vince LaRue,  Jason Wells, and many more that reject and antagonize us for our stand on the Spanish Bible, sometimes to the degree of making us lose our patience and respond and retaliate with unkindness. This was especially true in the early days of the battle for the Spanish Bible.

Did you know that Erasmus had many such enemies? One of them was Diego López de Zúñiga, better known as Stunica in English.  Had it not been for Stunica´s criticism of Erasmus when it came to some passages disputed at the time, Erasmus would not have corrected them in later editions of his Greek New Testament. For example, Erasmus didn´t think the Comma Johannie, 1st John 5:7, was supposed to be included for lack of Greek manuscript evidence. Stunica kept telling him that the Latin manuscripts did support the passage. Stunica, who was involved in the Complutensian Polyglot, criticized Erasmus so strongly, that eventually it motivated him to further dive deeper into the issue until he realized Stunica was right, and did include the passage in his 3rd edition of his Greek New Testament. Born in Extremadura, Spain in 1477 and died in Naples, Italy in 1531, Stunica was a humanist and biblical scholar, and wrote a diatribe against Erasmus entited “Annotationes Iacobi Lopidis Stunicae contra Erasmum Roterodamum in defensionem tralationis Novi Testamenti”, including a series of letters outlining his disagreement with Erasmus on the disputed passage. Later it is reported that Erasmus lauded Stunica for his scholarship: “Erasmus did engage in a series of contentious exchanges with Jacobus Lopis Stunica (Diego López de Zúñiga) regarding Greek New Testament scholarship. The internet says, “According to historical sources, Erasmus responded directly to Stunica’s criticisms in multiple published works, acknowledging Stunica’s scholarly competence once the immediate controversy had passed by referring to him as a “vir doctus et diligens” (a learned and diligent man). This indicates a measure of professional recognition, though not necessarily overt gratitude for the criticism itself”. Upon his death, Stunica said that he didn´t hate Erasmus; he simply wanted to express his love for truth. See Wikipedia, under Diego Lopez Zúñiga, last biographical quote.

The point I´m making is that God used these criticisms for the greater good of textual, linguistic and manuscript evidence.

What about us? Are we thankful whenever our supposed enemies say things that may be true? Years ago, when the battle was starting to rage, I wrote an article against Nida, saying it was him who encouraged a translation where “Christ the Lamb of God” was translated to “pig of God”. Calvin George immediately wrote me a rather scathing letter saying I was lying and “how dare I criticize Nida!” He demanded a retraction of my words, or else he would “expose” me. At first, I was angry at him, but later I decided to dig deeper. In my research, I did find the exact article in which Nida did NOT say that the verse, John 1:30, should be translated as the “pig of God which taketh away the sins of the world”.  Saying this would certainly be wrong—unless it was explained how lambs were not known.

So basically, I used Calvin George´s criticism to further investigate and make the appropriate correction of my article. Interestingly enough, and years later, the very exact thing happened to my good friend, David W. Daniels of Chick Publications. In his book, “Why They Changed The Bible”, ISBN 978-0-7589-0997-8, Brother Daniels, who was himself trained as a SIL translator on pages 20-25 explains that indeed on an occasion, he asked one his Dynamic Equivalence teachers about using pig instead of lamb, the instructor suggested to him it would be OK because the guinea pig is practically worshipped in that culture. Where did this instructor learn this? From Nida!  Nida said (see picture) “When none of the other suggested solutions are possible, one may employ a borrowed word and then in a footnote explain something about the animal.” See page 164 of his book, “Bible Translating”, 1947 American Bible Society, New York, page 164. So, I wasn´t too far off from my original statement. Calvin George criticized me saying “how dare I say such nonsense!”. I learned from my enemy to explain it better, and back anything I said about Nida with evidence, which is what my friend Daniels did, thank God. SIL translators DO IN FACT translate “lamb” for other animals, such as the ox.

Love your enemies, bless and pray for them. I don´t hate Calvin George, I pray for him and ALL my Reina Valera 1960 friends like Pastor Ezequiel Salazar, Tommy Ashcraft, Kevin Wynn and so many more. I don´t hate Pastor Arturo Muñoz, who said some nasty things about me and published them in his newsletter, “El Fundamentalista”. I don´t hate these men of God. I pray God will open their eyes to the truth that their Bible is corrupt, and that the RVG is much better, indeed pure. I did not hate Brother Jeff McArdle, despite that he would continuously email or call me trying to confront me with the supposed evidence he had in favor of the 1865 retrograde language. I don´t hate Vince LaRue of the same 1865 Society. I pray God will help him understand that even it had some textual problems and needed revision. I do not hate Brother Bobby Breaker of the Valera Purificada group, despite his views about “Verbo” in John 1:1 and calling me a hypocrite and a traitor for switching from the Purificada to the RVG.  I don´t hate Jason Wells, who writes somewhat angrily and with added insults at many of us for not using proper Spanish (he claims to speak better Spanish than many native Hispanics). I pray he will tone down his rhetoric and state his mind in a more loving, respectful way. I don´t hate Elmer Fernández, despite the way in which he physically grabbed me by the collar when no one was looking at First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and threatened to destroy me for exposing the 1960. Luckily, Brother Pina, a member of the Spanish church witnessed this, but never said anything to his hero. I don´t hate him, I pray that God would bless him, despite the trouble and division he caused many years ago at my home church, Landmark Baptist of Haines City. I don´t hate him, even though he took foreign Spanish students illegally to Chicago, among them a couple from my own church in Guatemala. No, I don´t hate Fernández, I pray he will someday come to a full understanding of his faulty position on the Spanish Bible he uses.

Stunica´s harsh criticisms of Erasmus included not just textual issues, but linguistic ones as well, in particular his Latin “Instrumentum”. Erasmus took note of these, and quickly fixed them, or responded to others on various occasions. See M. Batallion, “Erasmo Y España”, ISBN 968-16-1069-5, page 94. Stunica and others insisted that the Latin translation of the Logos as “Verbum” in John 1:1 was the right one and accused Erasmus of minimizing the doctrine of the Trinity, something that merited a clarification in his response to Stunica entitled “Apologia ad Stunicam” pages 304-305. He then confessed that “sermo” was a suggestion, and not a dogmatic change.

Stunica thought of Erasmus as a brilliant man, otherwise he would have never wasted his time trying to correct him. See page 130 and 131 of “Erasmo y España”. However, Erasmus also knew that most of Stunica´s harshness was aimed at discrediting him. Even so, Erasmus pressed onwards and forwards in his valid and timely work of his Greek New Testament. Thank God that Stunica didn´t ruin him, otherwise Erasmus would have never been able to carry on. Let´s never ever get bitter at our enemies. They would love that.

And so, we understand that we are all subject to the criticism and even the vitriol of some. Let us respond in kindness and charity, but also in firmness, and clarity, knowing we are on the right side of the issue. Let us demonstrate error without resorting to damaging the person´s spirit who is attacking us.  Though many of us love a good fight, let us never lower ourselves to that level of hatred and anger. A wise man once said, “All men are my teachers”. That includes our enemies—we can learn something from them. It just makes us all the better.